Category Archives: Elementary Schools

First Book helps Neff ES students start personal libraries

Students at Neff Elementary got a special surprise on Tuesday. First Book donated more than 5,000 books for students to take home and start their personal library.

“If they don’t become better readers during the summer, they will start back at a negative situation because they will have lost the ability, the concentration, the confidence that they are good readers,” said Sheila Long Armstrong, greater Houston chair of First Book, which teams up with the Disney/ABC Television Group and its owned-and-operated Houston TV station, ABC-13 (KTRK), for the program.
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HISD announces Nurses of the Year for 2014

A commitment to making every student feel valued and a refusal to limit care to an eight-hour work day have garnered two HISD nurses the district’s highest honors for medical professionals in a school setting.

Lashawnda Harris, who serves at Lyons Elementary School, and Karen Adams, who serves at Sharpstown International School (SIS), have been named HISD’s Elementary and Secondary Nurses of the Year (respectively) for 2014.

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FotoFest program helps students improve literacy skills

Students at eight Houston ISD schools have been improving their literacy skills through a program created by FotoFest, and you have a chance to check out their work.

Literacy Through Photography utilizes photography as a tool to develop basic learning skills, particularly writing and critical thinking, for students in grades 3-12. It includes a curriculum aligned to state standards, professional development for teachers, and artist-educator residency programs for students in both in-school and after-school environments.

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School at St. George Place is HISD’s newest IB school

The School at St. George Place has received official authorization to operate as an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School. This authorization brings the district total to 14 IB campuses.

“The last few years have been an incredible journey and it wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing students and staff at the School at St. George Place,” said Adam Stephens, the school’s former principal and the district’s current assistant superintendent for Linked Learning. “The IB Primary Years Programme has already proven to a great addition to the campus and I cannot wait to see what happens over the next few years as the students move through the IB Middle Years Programme at Grady and the Diploma Programme at Lamar.”

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Astros, Bank of Texas help make over Sinclair ES library

Sinclair Elementary has big dreams for its library, and they’re getting closer to making them come true thanks to generous donations from the Houston Astros and Bank of Texas.

Sinclair’s library was originally stocked with second-hand furniture from other schools, and more than 40 years later students are using that same furniture. The school has launched a “Love Our Library” campaign to replace shelving, computer desks, tables, chairs, and more.

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12 schools compete in All-Earth EcoBot Challenge

A dozen Houston ISD schools took part on the All-Earth EcoBot Challenge at Reliant Center last weekend, which allowed students in grades 5-8 to show off their engineering skills.

Teams of four students designed, built, and programmed autonomous robots. The teams then used their robots to complete a series of missions that connect to the commercial and industrial future of energy exploration, transportation, technological innovation, medical research, and environmental sustainability.

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Ready, set, Name That Book!

From “Go, Dog, Go” for pre-K and kindergartners to “Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick” for 12th-graders, the reading lists for the 2014-2015 Name That Book competition are online — just in time for leisurely summer reading.

There’s an added incentive to tackle the lists now: Books read from the Name That Book selections will count toward HISD students’ summer reading program goals, and if they’re checked out from a local public library, toward the library’s summer reading program levels.

The Name That Book competition is sponsored each spring by HISD’s Department of Library Services. It’s a program designed to familiarize students with classic literature as well as contemporary, award-winning books across a variety of genres. Teams of students are asked questions about books in their reading level that will test their comprehension of characters and plotlines.

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Mayor: Read during summer to continue sharpening skills

Houston Mayor Annise Parker stopped by Blackshear Elementary on Monday to encourage students to keep reading over the summer.

“I happen to think the No. 1 reason to like to read is because it’s fun,” Parker said. “You can read about different places. You can read about things that are completely imaginary.”

Parker said teachers can tell which students read over the summer and which ones didn’t because reading skills tend to fall back when children don’t read.

Officials from Houston ISD and the Houston Public Library told students, many sporting Cat in the Hat hats, about their summer reading programs. Students can participate in both programs without having to read separate books — and can gain separate sets of incentives.

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2014 Bilingual Teacher of the Year now serves at the first U.S. campus she attended

Sharon Samuel discusses life cycles with her second graders at J.P. Henderson Elementary School, May 16, 2014. (Dave Einsel / Houston ISD)

Sharon Samuel discusses life cycles with her second graders.

When Sharon Samuel first moved to the United States as a nine-year-old, she was terrified that her limited English skills would prevent her from making friends and succeeding in school. But a positive experience with her very first teacher here not only helped to quell her anxieties about fitting in but also set the stage for her own career in education.

“Mrs. Barrientos is the reason why I became a bilingual teacher,” said Samuel, who was named the Bilingual Teacher of the Year for 2014 by the Houston Area Association for Bilingual Educators. “She consistently went out of her way to make me feel comfortable, not only as a student in her classroom, but also as a young girl living in the U.S. for the first time.”

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Moving forward: Everything you should know about HISD promotion standards

It’s that time of year when parents and students may be concerned about whether they have met requirements to advance to the next grade, and HISD is making promotion standards – as well as a series of frequently asked questions – easily accessible to find answers.

In addition to appearing here, the standards can be located on each school website, in the Student Requirements section of this www.houstonisd.org website, and on the Plan Your Path web section that addresses overall education planning and requirements for graduation. The FAQs are available in the Student Requirements section and on the Plan Your Path area, by clicking the Questions bar.

Here are HISD promotion standards:

Grade Level Promotion Standards
1 and 2
  • Students must pass High Frequency Word Test – Recognizing and reading words that appear very often in written and spoken language.
  • State requirement of overall yearly average of 70 or above and local requirement of an average of 70 or above in reading, other language arts, mathematics, and science or social studies.
  • Students must have sufficient attendance*
3, 4 and 5
  • Students must pass STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) in reading and math.
  • State requirement of overall yearly average of 70 or above and local requirement of an average of 70 or above in reading, other language arts, mathematics, and science or social studies.
  • Students must have sufficient attendance*
6, 7 and 8
  • Students must pass STAAR in reading and math.
  • State requirement of overall yearly average of 70 or above and a local requirement of an average of 70 or above in three of the four core courses: Language arts (average of reading and English), mathematics, science, and social studies.
  • Students must have sufficient attendance*
9 – 12
  • Students are promoted based on their total accumulated course credits prior to the beginning of the next school year.
  • Individual course credit is earned through a passing grade of 70% or above and sufficient attendance*

*Sufficient attendance: A student’s total number of unexcused absences cannot exceed 10% of class meetings.